The latest in our series on where to invest your Isa money looks at American
funds

Time is running out for investors to decide where to put their Isa money for the current tax year. The deadline is April 5. In recent weeks we have gathered recommendations on the standout funds for each area of investment, including UK growth and income, emerging markets and global income. You can find these at telegraph.co.uk/investing.

This week our attention turns to the world's largest economy - the US.

Wall Street is a hard stamping ground for fund managers to find cheap shares. This is because so much attention is lavished on the companies, with analysts poring over their books.

Performance figures demonstrate this. Over the past five years just eight investment funds out of the 74 available to British savers have managed to beat America's main stock market, the S &P 500.

Another reason professional investors struggle is because the US stock market is dominated by colossal companies, such as Apple and Microsoft. In less mature stock markets, such as China, where there is less analysis, fund managers can find hidden gems.

For this reason, many of our experts recommended buying a tracker fund, which aims to replicate the performance of a given stock market as opposed to beating it.

Tracker recommendations are made below.

With the actively managed funds, our experts said investors must "think outside the box" and buy a fund that invests off the beaten track. In other words, find a fund that invests a bit differently and specialises in a particular area of the stock market.

First, for comparison, we set out the performance of the market and the average fund.

Five-year return of the S&P 500 140pc (turning £10,000 into £24,000)

Five-year return of the average US fund 119pc (turning £10,000 into £21,900)

This has been by far the best performing fund over the past five years. It is overseen by the respected stock picker Bill Miller, who famously beat the S&P 500 15 years in a row from 1990 to 2005. The fund invests in sectors that it deems "cheap". In recent years the fund has taken large bets on US house builders, which have paid off thanks to the strong US housing market recovery.

Ben Willis of adviser Whitechurch Securities is a fan. He said: "Given the current stage of the economic cycle in the US, we believe that the recovery theme being pursued by this fund is sustainable and will continue to provide exciting growth prospects over the next couple of years."

A slightly different way of investing in North America is to back a fund that specialises in one sector in which the economy has strength. Ben Yearsley of broker Charles Stanley tipped the GLG Technology Equity fund, which as the name suggests backs big multinational tech companies, including Facebook, which is the fund's biggest holding. Two thirds of the fund's money is in US tech firms.

"The US is home to many of the world's leading tech companies and the growth in mobile data usage, for example, is huge. Whatever your view on Facebook and social media, many hundreds of millions use it on a daily basis. This is clearly a more concentrated and higher-risk way of investing in the US," said Mr Yearsley.

This is another favourite with advisers that also offers investors something a bit different. This fund only invests in shares whose dividend yield is greater than the S &P 500's. The fund, managed by Clare Hart, currently has big stakes in Wells Fargo, the bank, and health care provider Johnson & Johnson.

"The US is a relatively untapped region for equity income seekers, and the fund provides a complementary position and income diversification for income seekers," said Mr Willis.

Five-year return: 120pc (turning £10,000 into £22,000)

Tracker funds

There are two main things to consider when choosing which tracker fund to put your money into - cost and "index replication", or the "tracking error". The lower both numbers, the better.

The Vanguard S&P 500 tracker costs 0.09pc a year with leading brokers, while the Legal & General US tracker can be bought for 0.18pc. Both funds are described by experts as consistently having low tracking errors. For investors who want something a bit different there area number of "clever tracker" funds that do not just blindly follow the fortunes of the S &P 500.

One is the S&P 500 Low Volatility Index. This tracker follows the performance of the 100 least volatile stocks in the index by having a bigger slice of its money in defensive sectors, such as utilities.

The SPDR S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats fund buys companies that have increased dividend payments to shareholders every year for the past 25 years. At present the index tracks 54 stocks, many of which are familiar names such as McDonald's and Coca-Cola.